New Riverside Outdoor Theatre, Shipwright, Opens on the Grounds of the Master Shipwright's House Near Deptford

Shipwright is an atmospheric new venue located in the grounds of the historic Master Shipwright's house near Deptford on the banks of the river Thames. This summer, audiences will have the opportunity to enter the grounds and watch a vibrant programme of arts in the garden of this unique house, which in recent years has been a home and inspiration to many artists and creatives. While enjoying performance by the river in this unusual, intimate setting of just 200 seats, lunch and dinner will be on offer from Deptford's much-loved local restauranteurs, Klose & Soan along with a bar stocked with locally sourced craft beers. The venue will be functioning at 50% capacity with socially-distanced audiences and appropriate Covid-measures in place.

Artistic Director, Joseph Winters, and Executive Director, Emma Halstead, are delighted to announce an incredible line-up of cabaret, drag, classical music, jazz, contemporary music, theatre, dance and visual art taking place across three weekends from 22 July - 7 August. Each evening will be a mixture of Shipwright co-productions and company takeovers. All tickets are now on sale from www.theshipwright.co.uk starting from £10 and an 'Open Door' initiative in which hundreds of tickets will be offered for free to local residents.

Shipwright Artistic Director, Joseph Winters, introduces the summer festival:

"Here's the big idea: audiences and performers alike come to the theatre, to gigs, to cabaret, in order to feel at home. It is with enormous excitement that we announce Shipwright's first summer festival: three weekends of entertainment in the heart of Deptford. We welcome theatrical world premieres, riotous nights of cabaret and some of the most acclaimed live musicians to delight audiences with a truly diverse programme of great nights out, with arts, food and drink all in one unique venue. Our outdoor space is like nowhere else: from their seats audiences can see and hear the Thames lapping against the auditorium's edge.

In partnership with our friends at Berk's Nest, we're letting loose some of the most exciting, silly and anarchic performers in drag and cabaret. Diane Chorley's Down The Flick has become the stuff of cabaret legend and we're thrilled to be serving her joyous night of comedy and music al fresco! Baby Lame's RIOT! let's rip with the punk anger we all need right now, with performers from all corners of the queer arts. The fun isn't just for grown-ups either: our resident drag queen, The Nightbus, presents Drag Queen Story Time, in which children get to enjoy empowering stories by writers of colour, read by a cast of progressive and non-conforming queens.

Leading our Saturday night music bills are rising stars in jazz, hip-hop, soul and folk: Shunaji, Rosie Lowe, the Jon Onabowu Quartet, Christy, and Rory Butler. In partnership with the Queille Festival, we will be welcoming internationally-renowned classical soloists including Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, Max Baillie, and players from the London Concert, led by Jonny Byers to perform perennial classics in the most sublime setting. A new performance of Messiean's Quartet for the End of Time performed by the Waterperry Festival Quartet, is accompanied by an experimental new film, and topping off our evening performances, we have DJs to take us into the night every weekend.

Our programme of theatre includes two new plays as well as the UK performance premiere of Maggie Nelson's award-winning memoir, The Argonauts. This epic cover-to-cover reading by a revolving cast of female, trans* and non-binary actors will bring this astonishing story to audiences in a whole new way. Chris New's elegiac play, DIG, is a tender monologue performed by the author, what begins as a meditation on loss becomes a life-affirming reminder of what is valuable in love and life. Asa Haynes's I... places the black gay experience at the heart of a romantic-comedy, delighting as this most predictable of genres has to stretch and bend around an entirely new narrative, like the ever-changing city of London it inhabits.

It is particularly exciting to announce OPEN DOORS, our initiative for giving away hundreds of free tickets to our neighbours. We want the people who walk past the theatre every day to be the same people who walk into the theatre every night. If you live alongside us, this space is yours.

The real star of the show this summer is the historic venue: opening our doors to the world, we are incredibly excited to welcome in audiences to a truly unique and breath-taking space directly on the Thames."

The Master Shipwright's House and Office is one of the few remaining parts of Deptford's former Royal Dockyard. Founded by Henry VIII in 1513 the King's Yard became one of the most important shipbuilding yards in the world. Current owners Willi Richards and Chris Majeika have made it a home and creative space for artists, performers, and audiences from around the globe. Shipwright is an exciting next step in the long history of creative arts at the Master Shipwright's House, bringing together generations of inspiring work, and welcoming in new audiences to this remarkable space.

Full Summer Programme Listings:

Music:

22 July at 7pm

Tim Mead and Sergio Bucheli

Countertenor Tim Mead and lutenist, Sergio Bucheli present an evening of Dowland and Purcell songs. Curated by The Queille Festival.

Tickets on sale now

Theatre:

22 & 29 July 9:30pm-10:30pm

Dig by Chris New

A new play. Beneath some trees, somewhere in time, a man digs a hole and into it he lays to rest the woman he loves.

Theatre:

24 & 30 July at 5-6pm

I...by Asa Haynes

A new play. George is a black, gay man. He traverses a summer romance against a background of an ever-changing London.

Music:

Shunaji & Friends

24 July 7 - 11:30pm

Shuanji brings jazz-influenced hip-hop with a touch of soulful synthesizer funk. With a live jazz band and DJ all evening.

Music:

Maxwell Quartet

29 July 7 - 9pm

Maxwell Quartet perform Haydn, Dvorak and folk music. Curated by The Queille Festival.

Families:

Drag Queen Story Time

30 July 11am & 6 August 11am
Join Shipwright's resident drag queen The Nightbus for a fun-packed story time at Shipwrights, reading stories from around the world from the comfort of this riverside utopia.

Cabaret:

Diane Chorley Down the Flick: Al Fresco!

30 July 7 - 11:30pm

Join Diane, former owner of Eighties' Essex nightclub The Flick, for a glitzy, fun-filled musical spectacular, amongst comic tales of her troubled and infamous past.

Music:

Quartet for the End of Time

31 July 12pm and 2pm

Intimate indoor performances of Messiaen's masterpiece, written from inside a prisoner-of-war camp, alongside a new film by Joseph Winters.

Music:

Lucy Crowe & Friends (Special Queille)

31 July 6pm - 11:55pm

Internationally acclaimed Soprano, Lucy Crowe leads an amazing line-up all night long. Curated by Jonny Byers The Queille Festival.

Cabaret:

Baby Lame's RIOT!

6 August 7pm - 11:30pm

The legendary Punk-Horror-Drag superstar Baby Lame is back with a BANG as she brings her brand new cabaret spectacular to Shipwright.

Theatre:

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

7 August 12pm - 6pm

An epic, unabridged reading of Maggie Nelson's gender-bending memoir by a revolving cast of female trans* and non-binary actors.

Music:

Rory Butler & Christy

7 August 7:30pm - 11:55pm

Rory Butler and Christy welcome the Morello Quartet, benjaluwi (DJ) and Rosie Lowe (DJ) for an evening of folk-inspired joyful music.